On Wednesday, November 13th, Chitose Laboratory Corp. Principal BioEngineer Daijiro Harada served as guest lecturer for a lecture entitled "Sustainable Design Exercise" (Associate Professor Hirotada Yamagata) at the Department of Project Design, School of Design, Tohoku University of Art & Design (hereinafter referred to as the Department of Project Design) in Yamagata Prefecture, following on from the previous lecture held on October 16th.

The Department of Project Design is a department that aims to solve real-world problems faced by local communities and companies by providing practical learning through projects about a wide range of fields necessary for planning, such as product development, promotion, event production, and digital utilization, and to cultivate the "planning ability to design things" that cannot be replaced by AI. In addition, our department is also participating in the "MATSURI" project, which aims to build an algae-based industry from 2024.The "Sustainable Design Seminar" is a class that develops students' conceptualization skills for sustainable design that starts from social issues, and planning skills to simultaneously solve social issues and client business issues through practical proposals to companies.

In the previous class, the students were given the task of "Proposing a new product (service) idea that uses photosynthetic energy to solve the social problems of food, clothing and shelter," and were asked to work on the group project over a period of three weeks.In this class, each group presented their ideas for using the characteristics of algae to solve social issues.The proposals highlighted ideas and new perspectives that are unique to young people.After the presentations, Harada provided commentary on the students' ability to think from problem-solving to solution, as well as the originality of their ideas. His comments elicited nods of agreement from the students.The students seemed to be listening intently to the comments and thinking more deeply about their own ideas.

Students commented on Harada's class, "By actually spending three weeks seriously engaging with algae, we not only felt a sense of affinity with them, but also had fun learning about their possibilities," "My image of algae has changed 180 degrees," and "I realized that there is nothing that algae cannot do, and I want to use algae to think about the various problems I will face in the future."

It was an impressive and meaningful lesson, as the students gained a deeper understanding of algae and photosynthesis.We hope to continue to use these opportunities to foster ideas together to shape a sustainable future.

Event Outline
Date and time: Wednesday, November 13, 2024 14:00~16:50
Place: Tohoku University of Art & Design
Lecture: "Sustainable Design Seminar" by the Department of Project Design
Title: A new product that uses photosynthetic energy to solve the social problems of food, clothing and shelter

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